Our visit to Luton Town is on Saturday, with yet another 12.30 kick-off, thanks to our very good friends at Sky Sports. Clearly we are not famous any more.

Kenilworth Road is about half a mile west of the town centre, in the middle of a large residential area, so the ground can be difficult to find. On match days police close the surrounding roads and there is a residents only parking scheme, which will mean you have to park quite a way from the ground.

If you're driving down from Leeds you need to leave the M1 at junction 11, and turn left at the roundabout into Dunstable Road (A505). After 0.6 miles the road divides. Bear right, remaining on the A505 Dunstable Road, which leads to the ground. At the Birchlink Gyratory after 1.7 miles, follow 'Town Centre A505' signs round a small one-way system and the ground is down the streets on the left hand side.

Car crime has been quite a problem in the streets of west Luton, so the police advise you to park in the town centre, where the car parks are covered by CCTV. You can also park at Beech Hill Conservative Club on Leagrave Road (LU4 8HZ) at a cost of £5, or in the large multi-storey car park at Luton Railway Station which costs £2.80 for the day on Saturdays.

The railway station is on the Midland main line from St. Pancras, and it's a good 15 minutes walk away from the ground. From the station, turn left along the railway bridge, down the steps, and turn right along Bute Street, which runs through the Arndale Shopping Centre. At the top of the centre, bear right along Dunstable Road. Kenilworth Road and the ground is on the left.

If you can't be bothered to walk all the way, keep an eye out for bus routes A, B, C and F70, all of which run from the railway station to the Clifton Road stop by the ground. These routes all use the guided busway on the route of the former railway line from Luton to Dunstable, which runs right past one corner of the ground.

A good pub near the railway station is the CMARA listed the ‘Bricklayers Arms’, though it’s sometimes home fans only for ‘high profile’ games, which might include us. The Red Lion (in Castle Street in the town centre) normally admits away fans.

And another option nearer the ground is the Beech Hill Conservative Club, (see above) and if you haven’t parked there you will find it behind the small arcade of shops opposite the bottom of Oak Road (going towards the town centre from the away turnstiles).

There are plenty of takeaways on Dunstable Road, and last time I was in Luton I saw a West Indian stall in the town centre selling goat curry. With the Asian part of town being close to the ground you won’t be short of opportunities to try some other exotic dishes.

It has to be said that Kenilworth Road is rather basic by modern standards compared to all the new and redeveloped grounds elsewhere in the country. It once held a crowd of 30,069, but in the mid-eighties, the club reduced the capacity by installing extra seating and converting a whole side of the ground into a row of executive chalets.

At least they intended to keep the Kenilworth stand as terracing, but then came the Taylor report and a further reduction in capacity to the current 12,056 as the ground had to go all-seater. This figure is slightly higher than when we were last here four seasons ago, as the Bobbers Stand was redeveloped for their one season in the Premier League.

Our allocation is a mere 1,273 seats in the Oak Road stand, which we now have to share with Luton fans. The bigger clubs used to get the whole end to themselves, but now we get an even more inadequate number of tickets. So we’re not far off being back to the bad old days of the late 80s/early 90s when the late unlamented David Evans banned away fans altogether.

This stand was originally wooden terracing, but concrete steps were built in 1938 as well as a roof. The steps and roof were extended back in the summer of 1956 and the stand has remained unchanged since, apart from the addition of seats in 1986. The entrance to this stand must be one of the most unusual in the country. After going down a rather small alleyway, the impression is of queuing to go into someone's house!

There are a number of supporting pillars in this stand, which may block your view, plus the leg room is tight, which is bad news for anyone over 6 feet tall. But the refreshments aren't bad by football ground standards, with a good selection of pies and burgers available, and they have even been known to serve alcohol.

To enjoy these excellent facilities, we have had to pay £32 for adults, with various concessions at £28, £24, £15 and £12, and inevitably our allocation has now sold out. Tickets for the home sections of the ground are only available to Luton Town members.

With the ground being hemmed in by houses and the busway/former railway line, there is no chance of expanding Kenilworth Road to significantly increase the current limited capacity, as the council will not let the club build the stands any higher than the surrounding houses.

So for some time Luton have been looking at the possibility of moving to a new stadium elsewhere. The Club now planning permission to build a new 25,000 capacity stadium, at a site known as Power Court near to Luton Railway Station, and the groundwork is expected to begin very soon.

This is good news for those who like to use public transport and go to traditional pubs, as previous proposals involved an out-of-town location near Junction 10 of the M1. And it also means that there's just the outside chance we might just get a decent ticket allocation in the future when we have to come to Luton.

Some of this stuff came from www.footballgroundguide.com.

reuters